Maris and myself went for a Glacier climb with Mountaineers June 29-30. This was my first this season and Maris’ second in a week! Pictures of the trip are shared here and a video is below:
The weather was really awesome! We started from the trail head about 11:30am and reached hogsback around 3:30pm, we decided to set our camp (base camp) here since we had running water and roping up and getting up to high camp, melting water + dinner would put us to bed pretty late. By the way the journey to the camp was not as easy – the trail is in a really in bad shape and we had to scramble our way in and walk over thin logs with a 50 pound pack . And Oh! one interesting thing happened, Maris dropped her pole on a shitty slope and i volunteer to go get it. I had to go through some loose gravel and some snow but as soon as i grabbed the pole on of my feet slip and before i realized i was doing a butt ride towards a raging creek . Fortunately i had my ice axe and i could self-arrest in time and make my way up safely!! This was a pretty freaky i think everyone was a little haired up seeing it .
Anyways we started our climb around 2:00am from 5700′. After making our way up the first slope one of the rope mates felt a little weird to after a lot of back and forth Jim (the leader) decided to go back with him. So we were then five folks on one rope 50m rope ! Anyways the weather held great and we were on the summit at about 8:30!! We made our way back down to camp at about noon and headed out from the cars at about 4pm to have the much missed Mexxi-Mamma burger ..
The three day trip was a fabulous excursion in the Pacific Northwest’s flora & fauna, tide charts and yep the longest wilderness coastline!! All of these were unparalleled to my any relevant experiences before! I can go on and on about how i loved the coast but i think i’ll leave you guys to enjoy the video for now!
There are a lot of people aspiring to climb 5.12, well for me 5.12 is the ceiling ! Last year i could lead 5.8, atmost 5.9 trad and 5.9 (consistently) and atmost 5.10 sports. Well thats all numbers and very geeky rock rat talk! What i really aim to achieve is getting more comfortable on the rock. When i first started rock climbing two years ago I feared heights , well the reason i climbed was just to get over my fear! Now i have come along long ways .
Last season I started leading trad, I learned a lot of composure and mind tricks! Almost everyone can climb 5.8/5.9 but when it comes to leading it all in the mind! While doing a leading harder stuff i learnt from a friend and colleague (Damon) a very cool trick of extending your arms and using your legs. Damon is an awesome climber and when he climbs it almost looks out of a video, also note that most rock climbing books and websites stress on the fact of using your legs and not relying on hands. It was sort of ‘AHA’ moment when Damon showed me how to hang on hands and move your legs up and then stand on a good hold, and keep repeating the same tactic. I wish i had a picture or a video to illustrate. This has helped me a lot, many time i’m just able to cruise up on the juggy 5.10′s without any problem using this technique. Well, no only if I had a cool technigue to negiotiate the tiny handholds i would be a 5.10 champ .
Anyways, to the point this season i’m planning to use this book to first get the 5.10′s and then move on the oh well.. lets see . But from what my friends (Wayne) have told me about the book, it seems to lay out a great process of trying to make training pyramid of grades you can climb to grade you want to achieve, end of the day its all about miles and constant tiny improvements with ‘AHA’ moments inter-spread.. sounds familiar ??
Man! memorial weekend was awesome, we went backpacking on the lakeshore trail! More pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/vaibhavb/tags/backpackinglakechelansummer2007/ the two days of 17.5 was action packed with sightings of mountain lion and rattle snakes. We did make it in time for the ferry back from Stehekin to Fields landing and yep! we did manage to get lunch in Stehekin!. Oh ya !! we also figured out how people in stehekin get their cars!
Well! this isnt exactly detailed but more interesting details coming up, soon!!
. And Oh! one interesting thing happened, Maris dropped her pole on a shitty slope and i volunteer to go get it. I had to go through some loose gravel and some snow but as soon as i grabbed the pole on of my feet slip and before i realized i was doing a butt ride towards a raging creek 
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